Jurassic world: fallen kingdom – a review

Owen Grady and Claire Dearing travel back to Isla Nubar to rescue the dinosaurs –and in particular the velicoraptor named Blue- from the impending destruction due to an erupting volcano. Once there, however, they find themselves duped by the most dangerous predator of all: humans.

Jurassic Park is back and even more gleeful than ever before. But, by now -the fifth outing-, it is about time to cut the umbilical cord linking it to the original blockbuster.

I’m talking about the numerous nods to the original Jurassic Park J. A. Bayona put in his movie.

Ticking toenails, The T-Rex roar, The T-Rex deux ex machina, the Gallumise run,
the rear-view mirror, several inversions of the kitchen-scene and many more.

It’s not like 2016’s Ghostbusters-annoying; as a desperate attempt to stay connected to the original- while making soup-jokes. But all these nods do hinder Fallen Kingdom in claiming its own place in the fictional Jurassic world in which dinosaurs walk the earth.

Having this said Fallen Kingdom has an aura around it which tells the audience in the end, without parsing words, that this is the new direction the Jurassic Park-franchise is taking. And I, for one, think this is a great move.

SPOILER: The dinosaurs are off the island. 

Truth be told it is about time. Just look back at the previous sequels: one failed and one (slightly) successful theme park reboot, some great-white-hunters, mercenaries, a rescue mission after somebody crashes on the island and some unfortunate souls who happen upon the island. The bottom of the barrel to get (children) lost on the island is reached. There are only so many ideas left.

The notion that ends Fallen Kingdom gives moviemakers all kinds of possibilities to play with both big- and small-scaled. Fallen Kingdom breaks down the restrictions.

One could even do a Dawn of the Dead with dinosaurs hunting people in an enclosed mall.

Then topping off this new direction with a mad scientist (Henry Wu) who is all about creating the perfect –highly psychotic- carnivore and all kinds of fun can be had.

I think Fallen Kingdom has taken the right direction. Everything is possible now and Fallen Kingdom explores one of those posibilities: haunted house horror.

A brave new world

Because the main goal of the story of Fallen Kingdom was to take the next logical step, the movie, as a result, is rather tongue in cheek playful. Starting off at the island the movie takes a genre-U-turn halfway through and reinvents itself as a 'haunted house horror'. this time 'round not with ghosts chasing the protagonists but a hungry dino.

However, the 'tongue in cheek remains' as the movie almost spotlights that the villain’s plan isn’t the wisest choice in the world. So the movie lets those villains ‘do their thing’ without any forced suspense whether or not they are going to make it.

Ted Levine is the clearest example of this, whose character takes ‘Jurassic-stupidity’ to a whole new level.

Moreover, fifteen minutes in you –the worldly movie-knowing viewer- knows full well who are going to be dino-food and not (slight spoiler: the ethnic minorities and the child will be fine).

As a result Fallen Kingdom is a bit twofold: one the one hand it is a blockbuster that doesn't take itself to seriously whilst, at the same time, does try to pull off some real horror in the second act (which, because of the first doesn't quite work as well as it should). This makes the movie a bit uneven.
Then there are some other things I noticed:

Feminism? Not in Jurassic World

On a feministic scale Fallen Kingdom still is nowhere near the original it constantly refers to. Where the original Elle Sattler didn’t need rescuing once and actually advanced the plot by carrying out dangerous missions on her own. In this movie Claire still depends too much on her on/off-boyfriend Grady to take action.

Slight spoiler, even though it is in the trailer: in fact she is the sole reason he gets into this mess. She persuades him.

Taking this reasoning a step further: one could even read the movie rather sexist:

as a woman being duped while the men are all smart enough to know better.

Please, please some basic physics!

Another bothersome thing is Hollywood’s ineptitude to understand basic physics. In Jurassic World Dr. Wu smartly addressed the elephant in the room by stating that the dinosaurs on the island aren’t real dinosaurs but, rather, genetic creations.

Something the internet has been going on about since 1993.

But Fallen Kingdom quickly stampedes over this by having our heroes do things that in real life would kill you: the biggest one being: getting too close to lava. It didn’t work in 1997’s Volcano and (even though hilarious) it doesn’t work here. Rule of thumb: getting closer that ten meters to lava is rather deadly.

Yes Kate Capshaw in The temple of doom would’ve been toast.

I know I’m cruel but in 2018 the time for marvellous escapes is over. Nowadays (thanks to the knowledge of Wikipedia) realism has kicked in hard. It’s a phase that happened before in the 1930’s, 1970’s and (now) 2010’s. Each time the quest for realism destroys a bit of ‘what was before’.

We will never have a great white jumping on a boat again. As, after Fallen Kingdom (I hope) we will never have characters centimetres from insanely hot lava.

What the heck online people?

As I did my homework and read up about the public opinion on this movie I was suddenly confronted with some rather insane people online.

The comment section of course; always a dangerous place to venture.

Apparently the environmental message in Fallen Kingdom –which has been present in every Jurassic-movie to date- gives all kinds of people online a reason to rant against democrats and liberals.

It truly is an interesting time to live in now when some people are constantly politicising everything they can find to attack the left-winged world view (or at least: as left-winged as The United States of America can get).

Reviewing it all

That’s the nitpicking bit done. What’s left is to praise the wonderful fun Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom delivers.

Cinematographically Fallen Kingdom is a treat. There are all kinds of shots hidden in there that are (even though, to be expected) marvellous to witness. It even includes a rather well thought out sequence of escaping a flooding vehicle shot from the inside. Truly Fallen Kingdom is a visually outstanding movie.

More so, scripturally this movie brings the bucks. I said above that this movie takes the next logical step. But what I failed to mention there was that it also skims the padding to the extreme. There isn’t a scene out of place in this movie.

As Jurassic World was a soft reboot of the original. Fallen Kingdom is a soft reboot of The lost world.

Coming to acting it is clear that Pratt and Howard hung out together. They play off each other vividly. The forcefully included kissing-scene works because the two of them are so comfortable around each other. Relying on the groundwork from their previous movie, whenever a dinosaur attacks they happily bicker while running- because they, by now, know how to handle carnivores: run!

The rest of the cast, however, are scripturally poorer. They don’t have the Jurassic World back-story to get them through this movie. Justice Smith is set as the pun-delivering side-kick. Whilst Daniella Pineda's character is too linear to have any dept. She’s there to save the dinos and send people on dangerous missions.

Which brings me to the –it’s Jurassic after all- kid. Purists online love nothing more than to bash on the Jurassic children. And, truth be told, the kids in the franchise aren’t always up to the challenge.

However, I do honestly believe that children are an essential part of the Jurassic-formula.

Jurassic Park has always been about ‘wonder that can kill you’. An astronomer might enjoy the heck out of a supernova but she sure as hell doesn’t want to be near it.

What better human can portray wonder than kids? And what better human can get into trouble better than kids?

From a scriptural standpoint kids and Jurassic Park are a match made in heaven.

The new kid on the block is called Maisie Lockwood: The granddaughter of the main financer in this movie. Now, differing from the other kids in the franchise that, sometimes, got shoehorned in she actually has an interesting story at her base. At least something that could be fruitful to further explore.

There once was an idea for a movie that involved human dino hybrids.

The idea to use dinosaurs as weapons has been around ever since The lost world came to be. And from there it evolved. Sketches were made. Synopsises were written. But finally it all got shut down by the simple phrase: ‘could it work?’

Back then, in this form, it couldn’t. One needs to ease people in slowly. One doesn’t simply spring the entirety of the wizard world on Harry Potter. You start at Diagon Alley and go from there.

In this sense Maisie Lockwood has an interesting tale ahead of her. Basically what I’m saying is that she could be: part dino. But the fun part about Fallen Kingdom is that it doesn’t matter right now. Her storyline ended the minute she pushed that button. It could continue, but it doesn’t have to

I won’t spent too much time on Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm-character. He’s there talking for a total of two-minutes. But something tells me he will return for the third outing (he still got the character though).

The villains, then, are marvellous. Rafe Spall is a favourite of mine because he often plays the grey area. Here, however, he quickly turns to black. Then there’s Dobby/Toby Jones as the ultimate upper-class ‘A-hole’. I would love to interview the man because – If I know him right- I honestly believe he enjoyed every second of it.

Back on the island again

In the end Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a build-up to something grander. It is a job nobody wants; but it has to be done. Fallen Kingdom delivers this but, alas, has to hand in some chips along the way.

Nonetheless, it is a wonderful movie that ticks all the boxes one wants for a great night out. Next time, however, I wish to see a moviemaker forgo the meek dedication to Spielberg’s original and cut its own path in the limestone of Jurassic Universe.